Mercenary God: Reborn with a talent for fighting.-Chapter 41: Ch Monstrous.

Oh....yes....the first time I died.

My memories were vague and yet that day was clear as day now.

I died trying to protect someone.

I tried playing the hero, and I got stabbed.

Pathetic, isn’t it?

"Cough–!"

A shitty and uncalled-for death, but... I didn’t go down without a fight.

I stood up... Pulled out the knife that stabbed me and took out the bastard responsible.

I stabbed him to death, splattering my surroundings in blood, then everything turned black.

The old me was no more... I was reborn as Alex.

Now I live his life wishing for a chance to never die without a fight.

"I... won’t close."

I stood up, my bones groaning from the pressure I exacted.

".....I will fight."

And this time, I’ll protect whomever I care about without dying.

So I stumbled... my bloody gaze falling on Selena, whose expression twisted into one of disbelief and agony.

"Please....."

I could hear her whisper something.

She was telling me to sit this one out.

Telling me to give up and stop fighting.

I won’t... never will until victory is attained.

My talent could be activated for one last round.

After that, my body will shut down to preserve itself.

So I activated it for one last test drive.

"My sword is an extension of my body."

Moving my awkwardly twisted arms forward, I recited.

Selena, angered, rushed to get her sword. She ignored the pain in her arm and ran toward me with a maddened expression.

I could see her obsession for this victory.

My loss was her ambition... right now, I didn’t know why, nor did I care.

My only thought was to cut her down just like all the rest.

She was an obstacle to my victory, so no mercy.....

"Ahahhahahah!"

Charging at me with a desperate roar, she lifted her sword up high, her arms trembling and blood leaking from her hands.

Tears... the pitiful kind... splattered from her eyes as she shook her head, unwilling to show this weak side of her.

As she drew near and nearer, she infused a volume of her aura into her blade.

It began to crack from the pressure, but she didn’t stop.

She pulled in more and more until her aura was an extension of her sword—extending to impossible lengths and ravishing the ground as she ran.

Before she reached me, she bent her knee and leaped into the air with a powerful surge, then lifted her sword even higher, it’s aura extension clashing with the barrier on the ceiling.

For a moment, our eyes met.

Her golden ones, gleaming with desperate obsession for victory—mirroring my calm determination.

She wouldn’t give up, and neither would I.

So there were no words to be spoken.

The victory would be decided by our actions.

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"A Star of Ruin!" Kain commented and took a stand beside Camilla.

Holi had long left, and Lyold observed the battle with anticipation.

Kain, on the other hand, smiled, his gaze lingering on his nephew, wondering how he would escape this predicament.

"Say, Camilla. Do you think the boy can guard against that?"

As he spoke, Selena’s sword, igniting into a pillar of pale light, slammed into the barrier, causing the whole coliseum to tremble at the display of power.

"Why ask this now?" she responded to his question with a question of her own.

"Why, you ask? Well, it’s because we’re at the climax—the deciding factor of the fate of our family."

Camilla gazed up at him warily, then looked back at Selena... her daughter accumulating even more volumes of aura, ready to unleash it all on Alex, who closed his eyes and straightened his palms.

"One is trying to end it all, and the other is trying to attain enlightenment."

That was all she saw, and that made the victor clear.

"The boy will wi...."

Before she could even finish, a tremendous force rippled through her body.

She instantly looked down and found a bloody hand coming out of her chest.

It belonged to none other than Kain, who sighed and raised his other hand to block a sword strike from Lyold.

"I missed."

Lyold, his expression tainted with hatred, blurred and appeared behind Kain with another swing.

Kain merely scoffed and swung his arm effortlessly, the resulting effect sending a barrage of concentrated wind into Lyold, slamming him hard against the wall.

As the enigmatic elder collapsed onto the floor, Kain pulled his hands from within Camilla’s chest and shoved her through the glass window.

"You’re rather strong. Enough to pose a threat to me, but just like brother, you were too naive to lower your guard around me."

As she broke through the window he took out a napkin from his breast pocket and began to wipe the blood off his arms.

The trigger had been pressed now the bullet just needed to hit it’s mark.

----------

The winds around Alex intensified, swirling upwards and gathering around the pillar of light Selena wielded.

Gritting her teeth and gripping her sword firmly, she slowly guided the mass of energy around her sword down in a fluid swing.

Charges of lightning sparked from the pillar, incinerating the very ground as they fell like the judgment of a deity.

Alex, his clothing billowing under the changing climate, drew out aura from his core and carefully wove them around his arm.

They wrapped around his twisted limbs like fluttering sleeves as he squinted his eyes open.

The original color of his pupils was now tainted by a pale light, and he kicked off the ground in a gallant spirit.

In his new state of clarity, he witnessed everything in an abstract form.

Energies, each of different colors and origins, wove through existence itself, shaping and stabilizing reality.

"Can I cut it?"

And yet, no matter how abstract they were, he was a blade.

And a blade’s objective was to cut.

From the week since he started using his talent till now.

This was all he ever wanted to achieve.

He didn’t swung a sword back then just so, perfect his form.

That thinking was shallow and swordplay was already an act he knew.

Hr swung a sword with his heighted perception so he could understand it’s nature.

Every cut it made as it was swung.

Every whistle it made when he swung it.

He envisioned it all.

His talent reduced the effort by a large margin but it wasn’t enough.

What truly allowed him to gain clarity was the roadblock Selena presented. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

She was weaker than him....that was expected but her poweress was frightening.

And when she converted that poweress into her blade and channel it into that pillar of light falling on him.

He had understood, he was far outmatched.

Yet even when he knew that he hadn’t backed down, he faced the challenge and that confidence to do that tweaked with a part of his brain. That part that didn’t want to back down and wanted to cut down the falling pillar.

[Intent: Cut Comprehend.]

As the prompt clouded his vision, his aura—once pale—ignited into a wave of darkness that shrouded his arms and expanded sharply around his straightened palms.

"I can now."

Oberversing the change in his aura, he stomped the ground and without wasting time, his arms blurred, tracing two diagonal cuts from the ground and up into the air.

An inky dark tilted line shot out at the pillar as the cut was complete.

There was no sound... just null, as the pillar simply lost its foundation and shattered like fragments of broken glass, their colorful form dispersing into nothingness.

Selena, her expression morphing into horror, was not spared as the slash continued on and etched two scars across her chest.

Her body convulsed in pain, and her blood sprayed all over.

Now in a state of pain and confusion, she began to fall, ready to hit the ground hard, but Alex, gliding across the ground, cushioned her descent and caught her within his arms.

He then crouched painfully and rested her on the ground before speaking proudly, "I won!"

Upon his declaration, he looked down at Selena, intending to smile, but his expression furrowed when he noticed how pale and blank her face was.

"Hey, you know you could be happy for me."

Ignoring the feedback his body was now suffering from, he complained, but he got no response.

Selena, as blank as a canvas, didn’t react. She just stared, as if her whole world had crumbled to pieces before her very eyes.

"I warned you."

Faint whispers shrouded the arena, and Alex looked back in confusion, yet to his surprise, he saw no one.

Just absolutely silence.

Confused he tried scanning through the crowd but his vision was too blurry to make sense of anything.

"Where is Lady Camilla, anywhere?"

Holding his throbbing head and choosing to leave Selena alone for the time being, he stood up and gazed at the skies where a descending shadow crushed before him without warning.

A/N: Sorry one Chapter for the day. I have a test next week so I have to study.